Sunbelt Software Announces Top 10 Malware Threats for September

October 5, 2009

CLEARWATER, Fla., Oct. 5 /PRNewswire/ — Sunbelt Software, a leading provider of Windows security software, today announced the top 10 most prevalent malware threats for the month of September 2009. The report, compiled from monthly scans performed by Sunbelt’s award-winning antispyware tool, CounterSpy(TM), and its anti-malware solution, VIPREÃ‚® Antivirus + Antispyware, is a service of SunbeltLabs(TM).

For September, SunbeltLabs reports the password-stealing Trojan threat Trojan-Spy.Win32.Zbot.gen maintained the top spot on the list for the sixth straight month, but its prevalence decreased by 12 percent month over month, to 6.75 percent of overall Sunbelt detections from 7.67 percent in August.

In August, Trojan.Win32.Generic!BT made up 7.57 percent of detected malware, a downloader associated with rogue security programs (also called “scareware”). However, in September it was no longer useful to track on the top 10 list due to the generic nature of the detection category. That name was used to classify a vast number of files associated with downloader functions found by Sunbelt’s MX-Virtualization(TM), a compact, high-speed virtualized Windows environment integrated directly into VIPRE, which performs rapid behavioral analysis of potential malware by observing its behavior in a virtual environment.

“In general, the top 10 list of Sunbelt detections for September shows a month with a lot of Trojans circulating, mostly aimed at getting users to download rogue security products,” said Michael St. Neitzel, Sunbelt Software Vice President of Threat Research. “Zbot continues to be a top detection due to its effective versatility in stealing cached passwords, login credentials and data in certificates and cookies.”

Not surprisingly, a widely circulating rogue security product, FraudTool.Win32.Antivirus2010 (v), made the list again, still at the number three spot. The VIPRE detected Trojan.Win32.Tdss.aalc (v) fell off the list entirely after comprising 3.62 percent of malware in August. In its place, another threat made it onto the list: Packed.Win32.TDSS.y, at number nine.

The top 10 results represent the number of times a particular malware infection was detected during CounterSpy and VIPRE scans that report back to Sunbelt’s community of opt-in users.

The top 10 most prevalent malware threats for the month of September are:

SunbeltLabs specializes in the discovery and analysis of dangerous vulnerabilities (i.e., security holes, bugs, maligned features or combination of operations) that could be exploited for Internet and email attacks. The research team actively researches new malware outbreaks, creating and testing new threat definitions on a constant basis. For detailed threat research information and to view the top 10 threats in real-time please visit SunbeltLabs at http://www.sunbeltsecurity.com.

About Sunbelt Software

Headquartered in Tampa Bay (Clearwater), Fla., Sunbelt Software was founded in 1994 and is a leading provider of Windows security software including enterprise antivirus, antispyware, email security, and malware analysis tools. Leading products include the VIPRE(Ã‚®) and CounterSpy(Ã‚® )product lines, Sunbelt Exchange Archiver(TM), CWSandbox(TM), and ThreatTrack(TM).